Inquisitor 1135 – Six further on, by Quixote
This was pretty much the opposite experience of the Raich puzzle with the World Cup theme. The thematic content was a ‘anagram and one letter change’ 7-letter word chain, the first and last … Read more >>
petebiddlecombe
Independent 7393 (Sat 26 June) – Bannsider
I found this very good but also very tough indeed, solved in a couple of sessions which came to about 45 minutes when I just had 24D left to complete. It took me … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1130 – The Magnificent Seven by Raich
For me, the theme of this puzzle was very easy to guess. I knew already that Raich was mad enough about football to make regular journeys from Ireland to support Sunderland, and take … Read more >>
Azed 1984 – Doublethink (Competition puzzle)
This puzzle reminded me (after completion) of a famous clue from N C Dexter, back in January 1984 (Azed 610), when the word to be clued was DOUBLETHINK. The winning clue was: By … Read more >>
Independent 7369 (Sat 29 May) by Klingsor – an orgy of Wagner
This puzzle made a nice coincidental side dish for Stephen Fry’s excellent program (3 days to watch as I write this, if you missed it) on Wagner. Klingsor is an evil magician in … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1125 – Disaster by Schadenfreude
Solving time: about 1 hour In this puzzle, which “depicts an historic event”, the gimmick is that “When the clue answers have been entered, some squares will be empty. In the final grid … Read more >>
Independent 7345 by Nestor – Sat 1st May
Just about the perfect Saturday puzzle for me – challenging enough to take my Times average time plus 50%, but not hard enough for there to be any serious doubt about finishing it. … Read more >>
Azed 1977
A mostly straightforward puzzle, which I think took me around 40 minutes, with Chambers just used at the end to find the answer to 16D and correct my daft mistake at 23A. This … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1120 – Name the … by Phi
This was a pretty straightforward puzzle except for locating the last piece of thematic material to highlight in the grid – I’d guess that two thirds of the clues could be solved quite … Read more >>
Independent 7321, Sat 3 April – Merlin
One of those grids that tells you there must be a theme – more black squares round the edge than usual, and a pair of black zigzags in the middle. It took a … Read more >>
Independent 7297, Sat 6 March – Nimrod
This was a fairly easy puzzle for Nimrod, solved in 12 minutes. My first instinct on sight of the grid, with two black corners and big T’s in the middle, was “there must … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1115 – Vanishing Scream by Dysart
I started quite slowly with this puzzle, but that turned out to be a good thing… The theme turned out to be one of the stock ones for barred-grid puzzles – Sherlock Holmes, … Read more >>
Azed 1970 – Plain
A reasonably difficult puzzle for me, taking about an hour, with Chambers used a lot. I think part of the difficulty was not getting 1A or 13D quickly. Azed seems to have errred … Read more >>
Independent 7273 by Nimrod, Sat 6 Feb – Serendipity strikes again …
… or so said Nimrod by e-mail when it turned out that I’d found an extra bit of thematic material. Solving time: 11:27 A fairly easy but well-crafted example of the multi-cross-reference puzzle … Read more >>
Inquisitor 1110 – I beg your pardon by Lato
Inquisitor puzzles must be subject to the same kind of rule as umbrellas – if I fail to notice that it’s my turn to blog and do them in a hurry, they turn … Read more >>